A European Anti-Corruption Training (EACT) workshop for representatives of all police authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), prosecutors and other relevant institutions for combating corruption has begun in East Sarajevo. The workshop, that will take place for the next three days, is part of the “EU support to law enforcement”, EU-funded project implemented by the BiH Ministry of Security and the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA).

“The fight against corruption is an important priority and a challenge for Bosnia and Herzegovina. This battle is primarily our interest, then the obligation on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s progress towards membership in NATO and the EU. There is no effective anti-corruption without adequate institutional and legislative framework, without an independent judiciary, as well as without cooperation, assistance and experience of other countries, as it is through this cooperation project in which our country was given, since the beginning of this year, the possibility of full participation. I believe that the exchange of experience for all working groups of the project and the participants of the upcoming seminar will benefit everyone, and that the best practices, lessons learned and models of collaboration will be used in the work of relevant bodies in BiH”, said Mladen Cavar, BiH Deputy Minister of Security in his address to the participants of the training.

Bosnia and Herzegovina received full membership in the EACT at the end of 2012 after a set of discussions held with the Austrian Federal Bureau of Anti-Corruption which is leading the implementation of the EACT.

“I am glad that our project was able to propose Bosnia and Herzegovina to become a full member of the European Anti-Corruption Training.  Project Working Groups are divided into areas of action of prevention, investigation and international cooperation, and so far we have a good cooperation with colleagues in BiH. We had a close look in past investigative processes in BiH and saw what the obstacles to bringing criminal to court were. We investigated the effectiveness of the measures of law in BiH, and I must say that all this shows that all the measures are in line with the best practices in the EU. This workshop is extremely important and we will continue to work hard,” said Karl Lesjak, Project Team Leader.

International and local experts in this field will be the lecturers during the Workshop.